Rotoscoping has been in wide use since its invention in 1914 by Max and Dave Fleischer. These brothers coined the term "rotoscope" to describe a machine which they constructed to assist in manually tracing live action movies, exposure by exposure, to create cartoons and animations. Today the term rotoscoping is widely used to describe the process of projecting film images one frame at a time onto a surface, where line art representations of actors or objects are then traced, or "inked," by hand. Optionally, these outlines may be filled with color, or "painted." See, Shamus Culhane, ANIMATION FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1988, at pp. 33 and 327; and Christopher Finch, SPECIAL EFFECTS: CREATING MOVIE MAGIC, Abbeville Press, New York, 1984, at pp. 35 and 247.
Many well known examples of rotoscoping exist, although it is not commonly appreciated that rotoscoping was a key technology in their creation. For example, Walt Disney Studios used rotoscoping to a limited extent in its animated production of "Snow White" in the 1930's, and then subsequent to that started to heavily rely upon it for its animated productions.
Rotoscoping is not, however, limited to merely the genre of cartoon-like amusements. Recent examples can also be found in the Horror and Science Fiction genres, which have their own particular needs for realistic appearing special effects. For example, it was used as a hand retouching tool when creating the film "Poltergeist," to enhance a scene where a house imploded into a small hole. Similarly, the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" used rotoscoping to wed small models of space craft with hand-drawn outer space background scenes. Extensive use of rotoscoping was made in the film "Star Wars," to add elements such as the light sabers wielded in fight scenes by the Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader characters, and to enhance explosions.
Unfortunately, a common thread applicable to all rotoscoping to date, and particularly so to rotoscope cartoon or animation production, is its labor intensive nature. Since animation projects of any appreciable size require artist-months or even artist-years of effort, the size of the labor force needed for such rotoscoping projects can result in very high expense. Further, the nature of the labor involved often makes particular demands upon the artist-employees. Artists are generally known for their tendency to be temperamental and transient employees. Hand rotoscope inking and painting is "production line" type work, which many artists regard as demeaning in view of their particular skills and training. Therefore, somewhat understandably, many artists approach rotoscope work as merely an entry level or temporary position, while they maneuver for promotion or look for more glamorous work elsewhere. This often adds considerably to "non-wage" personnel costs of rotoscoping projects, and introduces work consistency and quality problems which project management must allocate additional resources to control.
In sum, what is needed today is an improved rotoscoping process, one which advances this valuable art from a prohibitively expensive and tediously labor intensive one which has been stagnant since the 1930's.